The Deception

by Joan Wolf

  I could not burden him with a love he had not asked for and could not want. I must hide my feelings from him; I must leave him free.

  I thought painfully that it would be much easier to do this if I were his housekeeper and not his wife.

  Chapter Twelve

  Adrian departed early the following morning with Lieutenant Staple, and I saw him off with a resolute smile. Paddy left shortly thereafter, with promises to report back to me as soon as he had some information.

  I felt deserted after they both had gone, and to distract myself I went down to the stable and rode Euclide. Harry came with me, and he and several of the grooms hung on the fence while the stallion and I went through some exceedingly pretty canter pirouettes and a passage that would be magnificent when he got a little stronger. He was a wonderful horse.

  After I finished with Euclide, I had Elsa saddled up and Harry and I went for a ride. He took me on a tour of the estate, and as we rode I told him about my conversation with Paddy. “He has left for Ireland to see what he can discover,” I concluded.

  “Hmm.” Harry’s brow was puckered. “Have you told Adrian about this, Kate?”

  “No.” I was looking directly through Elsa’s ears at the road ahead. “There wasn’t time.”

  “Hmm,” Harry said again. I felt him looking at me, but I refused to turn my head. Instead I lifted my eyes to the clean blue sky,

  It was as if last night’s storm had washed away the last of winter, so clear was the sky, so fresh and pure was the air. I drew in a deep breath and looked at the empty winter fields that lay on either side of the dirt lane. Harry said, “A few days of weather such as this and the farmers will be getting out their plows.”

  I had never lived in one place long enough to follow the farm year, so it was with real interest that I asked him what crops were planted on the estate.

  Harry, who had grown up here, replied easily, “Mainly corn, of course—barley, oats, and wheat. The land you are looking at is leased, along with the cottages. Most of our tenant families have leased the same land for generations.”

  We had been riding gently uphill for the last half mile, and now we reached the crest of the hill and started down the other side. Fields stretched out before us on both sides of the path, separated by neat lines of hedgerows. Midway down the hill, to the right of the road, was a small cottage with a thatched roof. As we drew closer I could see that it had a fenced-in yard next to it, with a shelter that was obviously meant for a pig. A man was hammering at the shelter’s roof. Last year’s pig had doubtless been slaughtered the previous autumn for winter eating, and the accommodations were being readied for this year’s resident.

  “Hi there, Blackwell,” Harry shouted jovially as we came abreast of the yard.

  “Mr. Harry.” An unremarkable-looking man, of middle age, middle weight, and middle height, came to the fence. “Feels like spring,” he said amiably.

  “That it does.” Harry turned to me. “Kate, this is one of our tenants, John Blackwell.” He looked back to the farmer. “Blackwell, make your bow to her ladyship, the new Countess of Greystone.”

  The man did not look at all surprised. Probably nothing that happened at Greystone was long a secret from the earl’s tenants. He smiled at me, showing a badly chipped front tooth, and tugged at his forelock. “Pleased to meet you, my lady. Welcome to Greystone.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Blackwell,” I said.

  “His lordship went to London this morning, Blackwell,” Harry said. “He asked me to tell you that he will find an eye specialist while he’s there and make an appointment for your daughter.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Harry,” the man said fervently.

  “Not at all. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve heard from his lordship.”

  The man thanked Harry again, profusely, and Harry replied amiably and then we rode off.

  “What is wrong with his daughter’s eyes?” I asked when we were out of earshot.

  “She’s almost blind,” Harry said. “Blackwell asked Adrian recently if he knew of a doctor Blackwell could take her to.”

  “How old is she?”

  He shrugged. “About nine or ten, I should say.”

  A thrush flew up suddenly from the field on my right and Elsa jumped in surprise. I patted her neck and asked Harry, “Why hasn’t her father done something before this?”

  Harry shrugged again. “A man like that has no way of finding a specialist, Kate. And while my father always kept the cottages in good repair, he was not the man to concern himself with a tenant’s daughter’s eyesight.”

  I thought of Adrian’s comment about privilege and responsibility and wondered where he had learned that particular lesson. Certainly it had not been from his father. I opened my lips to ask Harry some questions about his mother, and remembered in time Adrian’s remark that she had died in childbirth when he was seven. She must have died while giving birth to Harry. I said instead, “Well, it seems that the Greystone tenants will be much better off under your brother than they were under your father, Harry.”

  He nodded a little curtly.

  I said, “I’ll race you to the bottom of the hill.”

  * * * *

  The days passed. The workers’ march that had so worried Lord Castlereagh petered out before it reached London, but Adrian wrote that there were things for him to attend to pertaining to funds for the Army of Occupation and that he would have to remain in London for a few more weeks. I tried not to wonder if Lady Mary Weston was in town, but of course the more I tried not to think about that, the more I did.

  I distracted myself by riding Euclide and Elsa, by visiting the Noakeses, and by buying three adorable spaniel puppies. I also turned my dressing room into a sitting room so I would have someplace comfortable to inhabit.

  The biggest distraction of all proved to be the arrival of Cousin Louisa in the Greystone coach, complete with a dressmaker and multitudinous rolls of satin and tulle and velvet and muslin and kerseymere and silk.

  I happened to be in the house when my cousin arrived, and I raced down the front steps to give her a hug. “Louisa! Why didn’t you write to let me know you were coming?”

  She hugged me back. “There was no time,” she said. “Greystone arrived at my brother’s house two mornings ago and told me to pack. By early afternoon we were on our way to London. I hired Miss Runce the next day—yesterday, Kate!—and Greystone saw us off this morning.” There was color in her cheeks and her green eyes were shining.

  I was actually a little surprised by how glad I was to see Louisa. I took her into the house, handed Miss Runce over to Mrs. Pippen, and gave Louisa a tour of the medieval convent and the Adam palace. Then I brought her upstairs to my sitting room, where we were attacked by the puppies. I waved Louisa to a chair and went into the corridor, where I spied a footman going into one of the bedrooms carrying Louisa’s bag.

  “George!” I called when he had come out into the corridor again. “I think these puppies need to be taken outside.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  I looked at his elegant livery. “You had better get Matt and Tom,” I said. “You can each take a puppy. Do not return them until they have performed!” Just yesterday Hasty had had an unfortunate accident on my sitting-room rug.

  George grinned. “Yes, my lady.”

  Once the puppies had been removed, Louisa and I settled ourselves in the comfortable faded-chintz furniture Mrs. Pippen had collected for me, and I said, “Now we can be comfortable.”

  “My dear,” Louisa said with awe as she brushed some puppy hairs off her skirt, “this house.”

  “Isn’t it dreadful?” I asked cheerfully. “Adrian said he was going to build a new wing for the family, and I think I shall hold him to it.”

  “Ah,” Louisa said. “Adrian.”

  I flushed.

  She took pity on me. “He is a perfectly splendid man, Kate. It was such a pleasure to see the way he handled my brother.”

  “Put the rotter in his
place, did he?”

  “Yes,” Louisa said with satisfaction, “he did.”

  I said a little awkwardly, “I would have asked you to join me sooner, Louisa, but Adrian was in France and I did not feel I had the right to add to his household without his permission.”

  Louisa said, “I perfectly understand, my dear.” I had told her the brief story of my marriage when I had written to her last spring asking her to send my clothes to Lambourn, so I knew she did understand.

  “Greystone was perfectly charming to me, Kate.” Louisa smiled a little mischievously. “He congratulated me on talking you out of posing as a boy and getting a job in a stable.”

  “I don’t see why you both seem to find that idea so amusing,” I said crossly.

  My cousin said with sudden soberness, “It is because we neither of us have your purity of heart, my dear.”

  “You mean you think I’m naive,” I grumbled.

  My cousin shook her head and something on her lap caught her eye. She carefully picked off a single, long, white puppy hair, which she dropped delicately onto the rug. Then she looked at me. “Charlwood’s scheme was utterly despicable,” she said. “He wished only harm to both you and Greystone. The best revenge you could have on him, Kate, is to have a happy marriage.”

  I sighed. “That may be asking too much, Louisa.”

  She widened her eyes in exaggerated surprise. “You don’t like Greystone?” she inquired.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I snapped.

  “Then where is the problem, my dear? I thought he seemed quite fond of you.”

  Fond of me. I almost shuddered. What did I want with his fondness? One was fond of puppies. I picked up a piece of paper one of the puppies had been chewing on and threw it into the fire. It flamed up immediately and I watched it grimly, refusing to look at Louisa.

  Louisa was going on, “He thinks enough of you to want to present you at court.”

  “What!” My head jerked around and I stared at her.

  She gave me a smile that I can only describe as smug. “You heard me correctly, Kate. One of Miss Runce’s tasks is to make you a court dress. Greystone is going to get his sister to present you.”

  I was stupefied. A Court Presentation had been as far out of my reach as the moon when I was merely Miss Cathleen Fitzgerald.

  “I told you he was fond of you,” Louisa said.

  If she repeated that word again I was liable to throw something at her. I knew very well why Adrian was going to the trouble of arranging a Court Presentation for me, but I wasn’t about to confide his motivations to Louisa. I changed the subject and asked her about her journey.

  The sunny, windy weeks of March passed slowly by, and Greystone was a peaceful and a productive place. The spring plowing went on in the fields and the seed was sown. I rode Elsa around the estate and made the acquaintance of all the tenants and their children. Adrian had asked me to ride Euclide for him, so I spent about an hour each day working the stallion. I visited the Noakeses. Mrs. Blackwell and her daughter went to London in Adrian’s chaise to see a specialist, and they returned with a pair of eyeglasses that improved Mary’s sight considerably. Miss Runce sewed and sewed and sewed and my wardrobe actually began to look respectable. Cousin Louisa began to help out with the local Poor Relief Society and soon became a bosom bow of the Rector’s wife. On orders from Adrian, Harry dutifully spent several hours a day reading Latin with the Rector, and in the afternoons he would ride with me or go out with a gun.

  It was the sort of life I had always longed for, and I tried very hard to be content. In fact, I was afflicted with restlessness. At the beginning of March there had been an extremely unpleasant incident in Paris between an English and a French officer, and Castlereagh had asked Adrian to go to France to try to win Wellington’s agreement to further reduce the size of the Army of Occupation. Adrian wrote that he did not expect to be back in England until the end of the month.

  I tried not to dwell on the fact that it was his continued absence that was ripping up all my peace.

  On March 21, the first official day of spring, Louisa and I went into Newbury to collect some books we had ordered from the bookstore. We took the phaeton that was kept at Greystone, and I drove.

  The day was fine, with high white clouds dotting the clear blue expanse of the sky. The grass margins on the side of the road were sprinkled with early wildflowers. I was driving a pair of exceedingly pleasant grays. April was nearly upon us. I was almost happy.

  Our errand in town proceeded smoothly enough.. Louisa collected her novels from the bookstore and then she told me she had promised Miss Runce to bring back a few yards of blue ribbon to trim a dress she was sewing. Louisa went into the dry-goods shop and I waited outside, keeping an eye on the grays and on the young man who was holding them. He was the son of the shop owner, and I didn’t know him well enough to trust him.

  There was little traffic in the street and the grays were standing placidly. I had just about decided to join Louisa in the shop, when I felt someone come up behind me. I turned, and found myself transfixed by the clear sea-green gaze of my uncle. I felt the color drain from my face.

  “Kate,” he said with grotesquely exaggerated pleasure, “how lovely to see you, my dear.” He made no attempt to hide the malice in his voice.

  “I regret that I cannot return the compliment,” I said.

  He was amused by my churlishness. “You should be grateful to me. It is because of me that you are now a countess.” His eyes glittered with enjoyment. “I hear your husband has gone back to France, leaving you to enjoy the pleasures of Greystone alone. Such a pity.”

  The best revenge is to make your marriage a happy one, Cousin Louisa’s words came back to me, and I looked at my uncle’s wickedly satisfied expression and knew Louisa was right.

  I smiled brilliantly. I said, “Yes, Adrian is in France at present, but he will be returning to England in time for the Season. His sister is to present me at court, and then we will set up housekeeping in Grosvenor Square.”

  All the smugness was swept from my uncle’s face. “Caroline?” he said. “Caroline is presenting you at court?” There was a note in his voice when he said her name that I had never heard from him before. Evidently I had hit a nerve.

  “Yes.” I let my smile grow a shade more brilliant. “Louisa has joined me at Greystone, and she will be coming to London also. It looks as if my second Season will be far more enjoyable than my first ever was, Uncle.” I looked over his shoulder. “Ah, here is Louisa now.”

  As soon as she saw the color of his hair, Louisa knew whom I was talking to, and her own smite was firmly in place as she came up to us. “Charlwood,” she said agreeably, “what are you doing in Newbury?”

  “I had business here,” he answered. The muscles of his face were tense. I had never seen him betray so much emotion.

  A hay wagon went by on the street and the grays turned their heads and looked after it. Louisa lifted her package. “I have the ribbons, Kate. We must be going.”

  “Yes.” I looked back to my uncle and found that he had recovered his usual cloudless expression.

  “Perhaps I will see you in London, Kate,” he said. “I am going up for the Season also.”

  “Don’t expect an invitation to dine,” I said bluntly, and he laughed.

  He remained on the pavement and watched as we climbed into the phaeton. He didn’t move until I had picked up the reins and begun to turn the grays into the street. Then, with an abrupt motion, he swung around on his heel and strode away.

  Neither Louisa nor I spoke until we were out of the town. Then she said, “Why was Charlwood so angry, Kate?”

  The secret of Caroline’s elopement was not mine to share, so I said simply, “I don’t think he was happy to see me looking so prosperous.”

  Louisa sighed. “It is too bad that Martin has turned into such a hard, cold, unforgiving sort of man.”

  I clucked to the gray on the right, who was lagging, and he stepped fo
rward. “What was my uncle like when he was a child?” I asked Louisa curiously.

  “He adored your mother,” Louisa said. “Their own mother—your grandmother, Kate—was an invalidish sort of a woman who had little time for her children. Lizzie was older than Martin and she always mothered him. He was utterly stricken when she ran away with your father.”

  I thought about this. “That must be why he hated Papa,” I said. “I don’t think Papa ever realized that. If he had known my uncle’s true feelings, he would never have left me to his guardianship.”

  “I’m sure that is true,” Louisa agreed.

  Against my will, I felt a pang of pity for the stricken and abandoned child my uncle had once been.

  * * * *

  On March 22 I received a letter from Adrian saying that he would be back in London within the week. I was to remove to London as soon as possible, and bring with me enough staff from Greystone to run the townhouse.

  I exploded into action. Mrs. Pippen would stay at Greystone, of course, but Walters, Remy, and a host of footmen, chambermaids, housemaids, and grooms would have to be moved to London if the house in Grosvenor Square was to function properly. Wellington himself could not have moved all of these people as quickly and efficiently as I did. The day that they all left for London, I rode Elsa over to Lambourn to say goodbye to the Noakeses.

  The old dears had been ecstatic when I first told them about my proposed Court Presentation, and Mrs. Noakes still could not hear enough about my dress. I had to describe it for her once more, right down to the last ostrich plume.

  Mr. Noakes listened politely, but he was far more interested in what Adrian was going to do about the unrest in the country.

  “I don’t know what he can do, Mr. Noakes,” I said candidly, “apart from voting for the repeal of the Corn Law, of course.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day that England would be overrun by rabble,” he grumbled. “If the government don’t do something, we’ll have a revolution just like the Frenchies did.”